83: Flyover Pride

The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian and this week we're actually coming to you live via digital recording from the Flyover Film Festival here in Louisville, Kentucky.

And I've got with me Ryan, who works with the Louisville Film Society. I guess, what is it that you guys do, or what are you trying to do with the Flyover Film Fest? Flyover Film Festival is an extension of our regular yearly programming. It's our kind of flagship program. program in which we take all the different things you're doing throughout the year and do them all jam-packed and really big in one weekend at the. Kentucky Center for the Arts.

If people want to get a hold of you guys or if they want to find out more about the festival or just the organization itself, where should they go to find out more about it? You can go to littlefilm.org. It has information about our U programming, information about flyover, different venues we do screenings at, etc. Alright, cool. I think that's all we need.

We'll probably just go ahead and roll into the first interview. I think first we're going to do John Stahlberg, Director of High School. So, here's John. Alright, we're here with John. So, When exactly did you become interested in film?

When I was really young. I was really young. I started watching movies all the time. It was in the sort of birth of the cable boxes on top of television where you had Channel 12 was MTV, 15 was Showtime, 17 was Movie Channel, 20 was HBO, and then you had the major networks. And I lived off Showtime, HBO, and Movie Channel.

And I would watch it all day. And there was everything from toxic Avenger, trauma films to you know, really kind of horrifying movies as a kid to watch, like John Carpenter's remake of The Thing with Kurt Russell. And, you know, I would just be obsessed with that stuff. Then I started watching Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street, and all the horror movies, and, you know, growing up watching comedies. And my dad's a big movie fan, so even though he's a doctor, he would show me movies like The Marx Brothers, and I would just grow up watching Go West over and over and over, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, over and over and over, all these movies, Night at the Opera, um, And, and then, you know, so it was kind of this mashup of like growing up on the, the kind of horror movies on Showtime and HBO and the comedies too.

And the eighties comedies, like, you know, uh, Steve Martin movies, Chevy Chase movies, Fletch, Three Amigos, you know, that's kind of stuff. And it was all that just bombarding me. And then I would, uh, get ahold of my dad's home movie camera. And I was, cause I was saying like, I was loving it. And it got to the point where my parents were like, you need to read more.

Like you're watching too much TV. You're watching too many movies. This isn't going to amount to anything. what are you doing with your life? I was like a kid, you know. You stop watching so much TV, get out there and play.

I would get into the horror stuff, comedy stuff. I started pretending to make music videos. I would make little fake music videos of Def Leppard. I would do anything. Stop motion.

I would do stop motion with Transformers and GoBots and all that stuff. I was experimenting with the camera, experimenting with visual effects, using little matches in front of the camera, just doing anything I could, using WD-40 off camera and doing explosions. We did all series of movies called FX, where we'd just experiment with visual effects. I'm in practical effects and also camera tricks, learning how to do a trick that if like a lock off, you know, you're there, then you cut the camera and you move the actors away or move something else there and then roll again. And I started learning all these little tricks and the funny thing is shooting backwards and doing things like that backwards action.

I use all that stuff now, which is cool. So I would, I've been a long answers. I've been obsessed with it since I was a kid. Awesome. Yeah.

Sadly I did. Yeah. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think, I think it's, it's, you know, uh, it worked out. So for both of us, I guess.

Somewhere in a drawer, there's a super eight version of a transformer. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I'm sure it's a bummer that some of mine got erased. You know, Michael Bay stole my, uh, he stole your idea.

You got a lawsuit. Yeah. Um, tell me about a Mr. Dramatic. Uh, Mr.

Dramatic was a short film that I, I wrote, directed, uh, edited, produced, basically funded it with my own money, borrowed money from, from family members, friends. Um, And it was one of those things where I had been directing a lot, and then I got into developing movies with, you know, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson was my producing partner. And we started developing movies, and I got away from physical production. And I wanted to get back into it, and I came up with this idea that just what if... It's a guy who sort of lives in a world of cinematic cliches.

He just lives in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie from the late 80s. So everything he does is over-the-top, dramatic, extreme, and everything he does is in slow motion. And everyone around him is totally normal. And if you just kind of collide those two things, it would make a funny kind of high-concept, short film. The concept allowed me to use really high production value to impress people that I could direct using visual effects and high-speed camera work, lots of setups, beautiful compositions, and really epic.

If I'm making a joke of Michael Bay movies, his stuff looks great, so I had to make it look great. So it was kind of twofold. It was funny by being so over-the-top serious and dramatic and cinematic, and it ended up getting me signed at CAA, and I signed with a management company that was a big deal at the time. And it just got my whole career resurrected as a director, so it ultimately paid off. It's a short film, but it also works as your own promo reel.

That's what it was. That's what it was, totally. And also, even to this day, I still use it. I was talking to these guys about the Farrelly brothers are doing a bunch of short films put together as a feature, and they're directing one, and Ratner's directing one, and some other guys are doing some other ones. I guess I'm having a phone call with one of the guys next week, and one of the things my agent showed him was Mr.

Dramatic. And it's funny because I use Mr. Dramatic to get a feature. I did a feature, and they're still showing Mr. Dramatic.

So, you know... I thought it turned out pretty well. Did a bunch of festival, um, runs and played at like Tribeca and, you know, Cinequest and, um, won all kinds of awards. You know, did a whole tour. I don't, I didn't even go to all the festivals that I went to.

I didn't have any money. I spent it all on the movie. And, you know, it was one of those things that like, the lesson I learned is that if you want to convince someone to take, uh, gamble on you, you have to prove that by gambling on yourself and succeeding first. That's kind of the lesson that, that I learned by that. So I, uh, you know, I, I kind of bet on myself doing that and it, you know, it was a little bit easier after I did that to have other people bet on me.

How'd you get Amy Eckering though? Um, I think I just reached out to her manager and said, Hey, look, I'm doing the short with Oliver and he had done a few TV series for Warner brothers at the time. And I said, look, you know, uh, Maybe she would be good for... Oh, no. The manager pitched her because she was doing nothing.

She was sitting around between TV shows or something. And he said, look, she's looking for something. I like her stuff from the stuff she'd done with Joss Whedon. And I said, look, she'd be good as Mrs. Dramatic at the end of the movie.

And. Then I met with her, and then in the room when I met with her, she was so sort of sweet and innocent. Like, her picture and the stuff she'd done before, like, I thought she was going to be kind of, like, dark and brooding. And I met her, and she was seriously, like, the sweetest, kind of most innocent, cute girl, really nice girl. And I said, you know what?

You'd be good to play just, like, the foil, like the girl who is going to meet him and is kind of thrown off by his outrageous behavior. And then she said, yeah, and just did it for nothing. I mean, we paid her, you know, whatever it was, scale, nothing. Wow, that's cool. And she was really cool.

Yeah, she's so likable. Very likable. Very likable. So then I guess the big move was High School, which you described at the premiere as a weed thriller. Yeah.

Is that how it's going? Yeah. I mean, we joke around about that because that was the sort of energy that we wanted to bring to it. We have, you know... From the cinematography of it, my cinematographer is a guy named Mitchell Amundsen.

Well, he's not mine. I mean, he's a lot of Michael Bay's and, you know, all these other guys. Stephen Summers and then, you know, he just shot Red Dawn and Jonah Hex and he shoots a lot of big movies. And I was lucky enough to work with him and apply what i wanted to do was this really kind of commercial cinematic what if like tony scott shot a weed movie you know what i mean like shoot it like pelham 123 remake you know like let's do it like that you know we did our color correction uh our digital intermediate company three with stefan sonnenfeld and like we use these really great technicians we worked with and and we made we gave it a look and get made it edgy. And we have, you know, uh, we had cool, um, you know, just like the sound design was done by Leslie Schatz who did, you know, all of Gus Van Zandt's films, milk and all this stuff.

And, He also did Rambo. So we're like, perfect. Totally opposite ends of the spectrum. We'll just get that guy to do it. And so we used really cool technicians and we did it with an approach like we were doing a thriller or make it moody.

And the more moody and cinematic it was, we thought the funnier it could be. We thought if you opened it up and shot it like... the way that Judd Apatow shoots his movies, which works really well for what he does. A lot of, like, you know, kind of flat compositions and a lot of lighting so he can shoot a lot of improvisation with a three-shot and a reverse three-shot. At the same time, you have to really light the set. It's tough to get contrast and make things moody and dark because... you really want to shoot the reaction at the same time.

I don't do that. I shoot a lot of single camera stuff. Even if I'm shooting with two cameras, they're pointing in the same direction. So we could give it a look. And you kind of have to do that if you want a movie to feel moody and feel dark and kind of cinematic, even if it's a comedy.

And so we took that approach to it and that was the idea of like, if we make this score moody, you know, we had Harold Faltermeyer and a friend of mine, a couple friends of mine who have a band called Freesia did some music for it too. And we kind of, layered both of those elements into the score and, you know, and just kind of took that approach to it. Like we're doing kind of an 80s thriller and then we then have fun with it and let the jokes kind of play and let the characters be kind of insane but within that world. So it's kind of riding the line between edgy and funny and, you know. It definitely works.

It puts it outside of the normal weed movie just because it's got that other element to it and it's got so much tension built into it that works so well. Yeah, I mean, I like the tension in it because it kind of makes people feel what we were talking about last night of that, like, sensation, if we could distill it, of being too high. Yeah. You know, when people feel that paranoia. In weed movies, weed is always portrayed as, like, all good.

Like, you smoke weed, and every single time you get high, it's really fun and funny, and you laugh, and it's great, and it's all good. And it's like this time we wanted to portray it as, like, there's also a dark side that psycho ed represents. And when you get high with his stuff, it's, we wanted to kind of use in, in, um, that vibe and, and kind of show a film that kind of embodied that vibe. And, you know, and that, that's tense. Like I've been in a place where it's like, all right, I wish I didn't just smoke that joint at a barbecue.

This barbecue went from like really relaxing and fun to like a nightmare, you know? And so we, so there is like a nightmarish aspect to like the bathroom scene. It's a little sadistic, you know, like, yeah, And people kind of laugh insecurely at it, but at the end, it's kind of a little bit of a release. That's one thing I was. Going to ask, is it does have a feel where it's sort of very open to the use of drugs, but at the same time, it does really play on that cautionary tale.

It harkens back to the reefer madness kind of thing. I mean, look, the movie's not about go out and smoke weed, and it's not about smoking weed is bad. It's more like, you know, we talk about it just being more a tale of like moderation, you know, that it's like everything within moderation. And in fact, like smoking weed for this kid kind of really starts to cause his life to fall apart, you know, so we're not saying that it's good, but in the end, ultimately. smoking a little bit of weed actually loosened this kid up and it was sort of the best thing that ever happened to him but he did have to go through a hell of a time once he did that right and with the other kid the other kid sort of needs to learn a little bit of responsibility and kind of grow up a little bit and kind of you know realize kind of who he is in in this context of what he's doing with his life and and so they kind of have these these um different trajectories uh but neither one sort of condemns their behavior or promotes it yeah it's sort of meeting in the middle it's sort of moderation and that's kind of the whole one of the themes of the movie I'm.

Like yeah the fact that he really does you know they show that film and you know one joint and it's all shot to head he really kind of. Lives that life right and then people ask me about the end we're saying well how can you show them eating Bud Brownies as they walk off into the sunset that's like the last shot of the movie they literally spill it a Bud Brownie and people are saying isn't that a big you know like fuck you to the principal and all this stuff and I'm like No, it's really about their friendship at that point. It's that like Henry's gotten over his kind of, you know, what he's had the same kind of perspective on marijuana as the principal, this kind of black or white thing. It's either wrong or right.

And he's been judging, you know, bro and putting his character in a box and kind of being judgmental about it. And at the end of the movie, it shows that he's kind of come full circle. He doesn't really care anymore. And what he really cares about at this point is like kind of he's going to hang out with his friend, you know, his childhood friend and have a good time. Yeah.

It definitely has a nod to the 80s movies. You definitely, as you said, grew up on them, but it kind of finds a way of doing it that doesn't hit you over the head with it. I think that's the problem with so many movies, because it's sort of a big thing with a lot of movies now to sort of tie in the 80s, but they usually. They do it too on the nose. Well, it's almost like they're just ripping off specific scenes.

Right, right. Yours was such a minor touch to it that it's something you set out to do, I'm assuming. Well, it's more like the vibe. I mean, honestly, I don't think my movie is anywhere near. I don't pretend to think it's anywhere near Risky Business, but I love Risky Business.

And I wanted to kind of go for that, which is like, you know, make a funny movie, but When the pimp, when Guido the Killer Pimp, Joe Paniglione, comes up to the Porsche and he's got his little revolver and he taps it on the glass and he says, Joel, roll the window down. Joel, roll it down. And he says, Joel, he's got a gun. You as the audience, that wasn't played like a Saturday Night Live skit. That guy really had a gun and he was going to really kill him.

He's very menacing in that movie when he's like, Joel, let me tell you. He's got Joel by the balls and he's making him buy back his furniture and you're racing against the clock for the parents to come home. And there's definitely a nod when he throws the egg, just like sort of Henry jumping for the key. That stuff of like, if this egg drops, this kid is fucked. The stakes were so high because the stakes were real.

And really wasn't like the end of the world is going to happen. It was like, no, his parents are going to fucking ground his ass or kill him. You know what I mean? Send him to boarding school. Like whatever the real stakes are for kids growing up.

It felt like that. And this guy has a gun and he could really shoot you. And I was trying to ride that same kind of line where Joey Pants is funny, but he's menacing. And we definitely went more broad than that. But Adrian, when he pulls his gun out and he's waving it around the school, you kind of don't...

No, and especially the first scene when he pulls his gun and Henry's hiding behind the door. I think the audience gets, you can feel it, they're a little tense like, wait a minute, where's this going? This guy's got a gun and it's not played like super silly. It's played like a little bit kind of menacing and creepy. So we wanted to go for that risky business kind of vibe.

And Adrian Brody is amazing in it. How exactly did you convince him to do this? That's the thing I was trying to say last night. Like I didn't, I didn't really have to convince him. We sent him the script and he told me, he said at the time he'd gotten a stack of offers and he picked up a few scripts and was kind of flipping through the cover sheet and said, he said, he looked at our script and it said in this project you will be, you will be playing the role of psycho ed.

And he said, he's like, I just had to read that. I was like, what is this character? Psycho ed. He said he just, he read it. He laughed so hard that he hurt his neck when he was reading it.

He said he, he, he had a neck spasm for like a week. And his manager called me. We sent him the script at 7 p.m. His manager called me at noon the next day. And she's like, he wants to get on the phone with you.

He loves it. He's really interested. And we got on the phone. I thought I was going to have to convince him. And he was like, all right, how do you want my hair?

Let's talk about the hair. He was already in. We had a creative conversation. And we immediately were on the same vibe. It's like, all right, this guy's cool.

We had a couple mutual friends, knew each other, and he's from New York, and I've got a lot of friends from New York. And we immediately started saying, okay, it's like this guy and this guy. You know that DJ? Yeah, I know him. So it's like B-boy meets rock star.

Okay, and we'll do like a cassette tape belt, like it's a mixtape, but he'll have cornrows from the 80s. He's a guy who's totally... kind of obsessed, so obsessed with his weed, he's forgotten about the outside world, so he's slightly outdated, but he's also kind of got this pirate vibe. The guys in the movie, we call them the weed pirates. They all have beards. They're like the pirates of weed.

They're sailing around in the minivan. The dark side of weed. It's like their boat. They run aground. His eye twitch is.

It was in the script. It was in the script. It was like, at one point when he finds the Keef missing, it says, Ed's eye twitches uncontrollably. It was just one line. And he, when we had lunch for the first time in Michigan, we were talking, and he said, he said, I've been working on the eye.

And he showed it to me. And it's something that me and all my friends do, and we always try to do it. Just for your reader's note, I'm doing it right now. But you be the judge of it. We all work at getting really good at it.

It's always, yeah. And so he was trying to do it, and he really nailed it. It's hard to have some really good control. And he does it in a couple of those close-ups. And he just always constantly tried to work on that and get that down.

It was just a schism of his character, just who he was. Yeah, he's really well-formed. Sort of pieced together. With the tattoos and all the tattoos. They're funny for the kids who watch the DVD.

When you get the DVD, I'll send you a DVD and you can pause it and you can read all the shit all over him. It's hilarious. Like he was a lawyer, so he's got the scales of justice on his back, except they're weed scales. And there's like weed. He's got a Philly blunt on his arm that he can like hit with a cherry right here.

He's got the frog. His frog is on his stomach. It's his whole frog is his stomach, which there's all backstory to it. And the credits, the frog is called Grandpa Frodo. And I played the voice.

And the idea was that he believes his frog is his grandfather reincarnated in the frog. So he he talks that's why he talks to the frog there's all kinds of fun backstory that we come up with all this stuff that's not in the movie and it gives it a little level of kind of uh richness you know people kind of wonder what the hell is he talking to his frog for like that we know as a director and the actor and we all on the set know exactly why he's talking to his frog his grandpa I think that works better. I mean, you can almost feel when things are thrown in random just for the sake. Of being random. Or they're part of the character.

Yeah, or as opposed to having part of the arc. And even with, that's another way to, I think, get actors excited too. Like Colin Hanks. Colin Hanks, I was surprised that he took a small role. I think he's really funny in the movie.

He is. You know, and he was like, okay, what is this character? I don't want to just be like the sidekick. And I said, no, no, no. your whole character represents the barometer for how high the school gets. And so as you get higher, you represent what's going on with the chemical mind state of the school.

And he loved that. And I gave him this whole backstory. I said, you're a character who was like the stud in high school. You were the captain of the track team. You dated this girl.

Your life was great. You went to college. You went to a fraternity. You started smoking a lot of weed. You got into some harder stuff.

You maybe experimented with cocaine. Got really into it. It kind of spun out of control. Your grades went south. You got kicked out of school.

You went to rehab. You broke up with your girlfriend. Your life kind of went in the shithouse. And then you started to kind of gravitate towards back to the place in your life when everything was great. And that was high school.

And so he kind of goes back to this high school. Now he's the coach of the track team and he's sober. And as he like gets dosed with these weed, he sort of digresses, not digresses. He, what's the word? He regresses.

That's the word. Back to the state, you know, when he was kind of falling apart and, you know, ends up in Nicaragua on the beach. I don't know if it's good or bad. And he's in like this 80s sweat band, like dancing. And then Michael Chiklis is unrecognizable.

Well, people have been coming up to me at this festival. Two or three people have come up to me today and yesterday saying, who is that character actor who plays the principal? Where did you find him? He's great. And I was like, it's funny that nobody recognizes Chiklis.

Yeah, he does such a good job. It's not just the hair. The hair definitely isn't nice. But he's a really funny actor. And I think he'd just come off like seven years of The Shield. where he was doing this really dramatic, serious, intense Vic Mackey performance.

It's funny because when I first met him, I was like, oh, this guy's a total funny guy. He's a very smart guy. He's a really good actor. I expected him to be Vic Mackey from The Shield, and he's not. He's a really friendly guy, really funny, cool guy, loves to have a good time.

And I was like, all right, this guy's going to be great. And he was like an explosion of all this kind of repressed stuff that he loves to be on stage, and he's a performer. He was a theater major, and he loves to perform, and he loves to be the center of attention telling jokes and stories. And it was just an absolute explosion for him. And we had to kind of harness that.

And that's why I think people don't recognize him because it's the energy of the performance and the whole thing, the voice, the mannerisms, the sort of ridiculousness, and how far he was willing to go. He would always say, dude, my kids can never see this. This is humiliating. Under the desk bit. And he's like, I cannot believe you're making me do this.

He was really scared about all that. And then I was like, dude, you just got to do it. And when he did it, he fully committed. He's one of the best hand actors I've ever seen. You see all that hand acting under the desk?

Genius hand acting. He sometimes touches his face when he's talking. Great stuff. Yeah, he does an amazing job in it, I have to say. Yeah, I think so, too.

Other than that, I guess I was just going to ask on the dealing with the putting together the movie and now having to get it distributed. That in and of itself, I guess you can go into, but I was also just going to ask... your, your thoughts on the situation of Hollywood in general. It's, it's in a weird spot now. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Hollywood's, when you look back at the history of Hollywood, it's constantly in this like upheaval state. That's just how Hollywood is. It's a very new industry still. It's only 110, 15 years old at max. And I'm talking about like avatar to like the first Nickelodeon that that's how much it's come in a hundred years.

That's kind of insane, you know? Um, So it's always a business about reinvention and upheaval and change and things are just totally changing. I just watched Shutter Island last night on my iPad in bed because my TV broke. And it was totally cool. And that's how, ironically, we're enjoying entertainment on smaller and smaller things.

And we're in this kind of time when we're in this post-Avatar hangover where audiences are not going to get into the Greek and they're not going to see I mean a few people went but it feels like nobody's there's a real kind of slow summer start and I think some of the movies aren't so great I haven't seen get into the Greek but I hear it's actually pretty funny and it's like you'd think a couple years ago that would have done really well but now that there's like okay I gotta go park and I gotta buy two $ 15 tickets and then I gotta buy dinner for me and my date and I gotta do this and then I gotta buy $ 20 worth of candy and drinks and popcorn and it's like $ 100 and I'm gonna spend $ 100 and take a shower and put on clothes and do a whole thing just to go see you know, the killers with, or killers with like Ashton Kutcher, no offense, but you know, well, okay, offense, offense, please.

You know what I mean? It's asking for it. And it's like, and it's like, You know, I don't want to spend all that money to go see something like that. And now they're coming out with this technology where, like, you know, your PlayStation 3 remote where it vibrates? Yeah.

Where there's seats that are programmed to the movies. You're watching in 3D, like, virtual reality goggles, gloves. You're in the seat vibrating. It's going to be like Captain EO or, like, Star Tours. Or, like, returning to William Castle.

Yeah. I'm telling you. It's, like, seriously, like, you're going through, like, a roller coaster ride. Yeah. And so it's, like, movies are either roller coaster ride, and it used to be, or small.

Now it's roller coaster ride or nothing. Yeah. Clash of the Titans made $ 450 million. Alice in Wonderland is one of the highest-grossing films of all time. I don't know what you think of it.

It was entertaining, but highest-grossing films of all time. Avatar made, I think, okay, Titanic was the highest-grossing film before that, made $ 1. 7 billion. Avatar's made $ 2. 7 billion.

It's just changed the business, and now it's like you have to make these huge, massive movies, and independent film is really struggling, and it's tough because there's so many cool movies that come out of Sundance, and I saw a bunch of really cool movies up there, and, you know. In a way, I was thinking this is almost, this is the chance, you know, almost to make your move for independent cinema. It's like, now that people have kind of lost so much, you know, respect for, you know, going to the theater, you can almost find that niche of, it's not going to be this big blockbuster, but this has something to offer that those don't, and And especially cause I think the independent people are realizing before the major studios that there is this window into the home and onto the iPods.

Right. Right. So you can just go do a deal straight now with iTunes or do a deal with Netflix and do direct downloads and things, but then you still got to market it, you know, so you've got to do an online spend and buying online ad space is expensive. So you need someone to finance the marketing of that, you know, and now there's the DVD market is shrinking. So it's like, we kind of don't know what's going to happen.

It's just basically VOD and, uh, you know direct downloads and things like that um but it's kind of like it's kind of whack i don't know how much you've gotten into but i was on the plane and i ordered before i got on the plane i ordered wolfman um i ordered uh to rent from itunes i got wolfman i got the messenger with woody harrelson and i got um shutter island and i watched shutter island and today i opened up my ipad and it said wolfman and messengers have expired and i never watched them i only had like 48 hours or something. That was it. My rental is over, and now I just spent $ 5 on each or $ 6, $ 8, whatever it is. We're back to DivX again. Yeah.

That's why that went up. I know. It's weird. Then you've got Redbox and renting DVDs, and the windows are shrinking. The business is just kind of nuts.

As much as it changed just from the 80s to the 2000s, in the last five to six years, it's been amazing how much everything has revolutionized. It's still in that. State of flux. Yeah, it's interesting. And I think that, you know, if you're going to make a movie, it's got to be commercial.

And I don't think making a good movie and a commercial movie are mutually exclusive. That's like my whole key is that I want to make really good, really fun commercial movies that are really well made, that are interesting to watch, with great performances, with great actors. And, you know, I think I sit sort of my foot in the right direction with high school. It's cinematic. You know, I think I got good performances.

I mean, I feel really happy with it. Um, it feels really commercial and really fun, but at the same time, like it feels like it's not a movie that's selling out or, or pandering. Like it feels like it's just trying to be what it is, you know? Um, and I, and I want to take that to the next level. I've got these movie ideas that I'm working on right now that are like, I'm doing an MMA comedy.

It's like the Jewish Rocky, but a guy who gets seduced into the world of MMA and it's like played really serious, but it's a guy who goes through this ridiculous transformation into an MMA fighter. You know, like imagine Seth Rogen with a faux hawk and like bleached frosted tips and like tattoo on his chest. You know what I mean? Like, and he's totally out of place. Like, what am I doing here?

But he's been convinced that he's got a gift, you know, his right hand. And, you know, and giving it like some action and some sizzle and some reason to get you in theater. And then also deliver on the laughs and, you know, make it cinematic and just make a really fun, good movie. Those are kind of hard to come by. They're hard to come by and I think there's still a market for that.

Good, really well executed, funny, cool movie. That's what I want to make. That sounds like a good point. Cool. As far as high school, is there a way for people to, where should they go, online or something?

Yeah, they should go to departmentofmoralhealth.us. So it's D-E-P-T of moralhealth.us. And there they can link to our Facebook page and there's a YouTube page and all the pages and whatever, Twitter and all that. And yeah, they can go to check out the teaser and there's upcoming news and there's stills and the posters, which got a lot of good response at Sundance. Yeah.

And, you know, there's going to be news about the release soon and it's all sort of in flux right now. We wanted more concrete news to be able to announce. Yeah. But the idea is for it to come out this fall, and hopefully that's still on track. But if people want to go check that out and kind of give shouts out and become friends and do all that stuff, it always helps.

The more kind of traffic we get, the more of an impetus there is to release the film theatrically. Definitely. We can try to spread the word and let them know when it's coming. Great. We'd appreciate that.

Definitely. But yes, thanks for talking to us today. And it should be good. I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Really appreciate it. All right, thanks again to John, and look for his movie High School in the near future as it gets distribution. All right, we'll take a short break and be back with more coverage from the Flyover Film Club. Fly over, fly over Let's all go to the lobby To get ourselves a.

Treat Delicious things to eat. The popcorn can't be beat. The sparkling drinks are just dandy. The chocolate bars and the candy. So let's all go to the.

Lobby to get ourselves a treat. Let's all go to. The lobby to get ourselves a treat. What happens to Nancy and Sheila in The Mansion of the Doomed is so horrifying, we can't even hint at it on this radio station. Mansion of the Doomed is so shocking, it will never appear on television.

Some films you see, some you feel. You'll feel Mansion of the Doomed. You'll never forget. Mansion of the Doomed. Hey kids, are you ready for Mid-America's largest genre film festival?

That's right, it's time for the 6th annual Fright Night Film Fest, coming to you July 30th through August 1st in Louisville, Kentucky. Featuring special guests, director, producer. Oscar winner, and living legend, Roger Corman. Plus a Dawn of the Dead reunion, a Night of the Creeps. Reunion, the Girls of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, plus a.

25th anniversary Fright Night reunion. All that plus the Georgetown drive-in experience, live music, and more horror merchandise that you'll know. What to do with. And even an appearance from the Movie Meltdown Gang. So come on out and join us July 30th through August 1st.

For more details on the show, up to your guest list, or to get your tickets, go to Fright Night Film Fest dot com. Fright Night Film Fest is my favorite film festival. Hands down. This is Jason sitting here with my main man, Brian. We're with Movie Meltdown.

Come check us out. I did a little interview thing, and I don't know. Heck, you might learn something. All right, we're back. And next up, we talk to Jack Stevenson, author and film curator, who has come to the festival with an assemblage of movies called Movies with Roots in Hell, the Effects of Drugs on American Cinema.

We're here today with Jack. You're an author and a curator of film. How exactly did you initially get to this point? At what point did you find yourself becoming somewhat obsessed with film? Well, I. when I moved to Boston in the late seventies, uh, the, uh, repertory and art house, uh, scene was flourishing.

So that was kind of, um, in a general, uh, for a general level film, that was a wonderful place to be at the time. And then in, uh, the mid eighties, I started booking, um, shows at this dive bar in Boston called Chet's Last Call. And it, um, we would have like a, a film, say, uh, Female Trouble by John Waters or something, and a couple of punk bands before and after. And so I always lost a lot of money because I had to pay a projectionist, rent the film, and pay the bands. So then I realized you could actually collect films and own them yourself.

So I learned how to run them on a 16 projector and started collecting projectors and films. At that time in the 80s, it was still possible. I think the prices have gone up now because most everything is going through eBay on an auction basis. So that's kind of the humble way I got into collecting film. And then if you start buying up loads of films, at the high school I used to go to, they were getting rid of their 16mm films at one point, so I told my mother to go there and Because I wasn't in town at that point, and I told her to bid on them.

And so somebody offered $ 11, and she bid $ 13, and she got a car full of films. And I know other people who collect them, and places throw them out, or they give them away. A lot of places give them away if you will take them. So 16mm became a fairly worthless commodity. People just don't.

Whenever I do a show. I think it's always more powerful if you have the 16mm projector showing it in the auditorium. It's just something indefinable. And it's something people don't see. And they don't see.

It's exotic now. It used to be that the whole focus was to take the 16mm out of the auditorium and put it in a booth or put it where you couldn't see it. Now it's better to actually put it in the middle of the auditorium. There's going to be a whole generation of kids that have no idea what that machine is. Yeah, very soon.

It's kind of scary. Had you always been interested in film just in general? Yeah, just in general. I always like going to the movies and stuff, probably like a lot of people. And I like showing it to people and getting reactions and stuff.

And then I started writing books about various aspects of it. So I consider myself a film collector and a film writer. And then I also operate a small theater in Copenhagen. What exactly is the criteria when you cross the line from collector to curator? It's a good question because to put together a show that doesn't give people too much and doesn't exhaust them, putting together shorts in some thematic package, you can't make it too long.

Sometimes you can't bombard them with a two- or three-hour show. So I think that's kind of the art of curating, but they're very closely entwined. Is it always. The film medium, or is it also the accessories and all the posters and collectibles that go along? I'm not really a collector of posters.

I wish I had enough money to do that. I love them, but you enter the collector's realm there, and you also don't have any place to display them or to hang them, so I haven't really. But I am. Interested in the machinery of it, and we have. A film group back in Copenhagen, we sent emails to all the theaters and all the schools and asked them if they had any projectors that we could borrow, quote-unquote.

And so we were given about 15 projectors. Now we monopolize or dominate the 16mm market in Denmark. But there is no way you can get films there. You can't rent them. You can't borrow them.

So the 16mm format is dead there. and a lot of people don't realize the importance of the format because if you, if you have a movie theater and you take out your 16 millimeter projector to give you more room to put in digital format, you lose a possibility to show literally, uh, tens of thousands of films that are not transferred and never will be. 16 is still an uncharted sea of movies, short movies, underground movies. I mean, they were all made in that format for decades. And, uh, people think everything will be transferred but it's it's not true if you go to the new york film co-op or canyon cinema or these kind of places there are still many many films that you know that are waiting there to be discovered there's.

Still so much stuff that most people have never even seen or heard of. It right right much of it in the underground or the educational also educational films and So I consider myself kind of an archaeologist in a way, too, because it's the flotsam of history that we're talking about here. And when you find a 16mm film like the Hot Dog film, which is also a bit known. Somebody else has a print of that, and it's ended up in a couple of DVDs or something. But it's discovering, in many ways, something that's totally unique here.

As well at one point did you i mean i guess you've always liked film in general did you specifically set out to start finding more obscure or just very strange movies or. Is it just something that happened along the way well it happened along the way i also have a lot of feature films i have print flash gordon and a lot of spaghetti westerns and um hell's angels on wheels and blaxploitation films so i like these genre films and uh And I like seeing them on 35 millimeter. Of course, with Tarantino and Grindhouse, it's kind of sort of um, mythified or, you know, turned it into kind of an ironic postmodern thing to see scratches on a film or something like that. But still it's, uh, there's a difference between, uh, film and DVD projection because most, if you talk to the technical people, they'll say that very soon all films will be, uh, video beamed, um, shown digitally and somehow downloaded and shown like that.

But the small theaters that show the most interesting stuff, they don't have enough money for good equipment. So the DVD projection will always be problematic. It's not how the films are made. It's simply the projection. Many of them wash the screen with white light, so you lose all the nuance.

So I'm still a film purist and unapologetic. And then the film you're touring with now, it's Movies with Roots in Hell. Exactly what all would you use to describe that? Well, I took that title, of course, from the Dwayne Esper film that we saw outtakes from, Marijuana, Weed with Roots in Hell. So I wanted a kind of exploitation horror movie title to it.

And when I talk in Europe to people about this drug cinema, they don't really know what I mean, drug scare cinema, because In Europe, there may be a few films that fit that category, but it doesn't span decades and genres. In America, it spans genres. It's underground films. It's feature films. It's mainstream films.

Also could be put in that category. In America, that theme is wide enough to really create a show. Yeah, and it went on for so long. It went on, and it's still going on. They're still making movies about it.

It's the stuff of drama, really. I mean, you know. Profit, temptation, crime, morality, a lot of the exaggerated morality. I mean, as we saw in this, you know, just ridiculous exaggerated morality, hypocrisy. Yeah, I mean, as ridiculous as some of them get, at the same time it is really a snapshot of, you know, America at that time.

It is sort of important to have them and not let them be lost to the ages just, you know, because... they don't apply right now, you know, it still sort of captures who we. Were at that point. Yeah, yeah. As far as your books, what all have you gone into? Well, I wrote a compilation about erotic cinema, Fleshpot.

Then I wrote a book called Land of the Thousand Balconies in 2003, which is a collection of essays and more personal stuff. And then I wrote the drug book, Addicted, The Myth and Menace of Drugs in Film. That was also from 2000 And then, uh, the two films, uh, three books on Danish cinema, a book on Hexen called Witchcraft Through the Ages out on Fab Press, 2006. Uh, Von Trier, uh, Lars Von Trier, which is the title for the BFI in 2001. Uh, Dogma, uh, Uncut, 2003 from Santa Monica Press.

Um, and then this last film, Scandinavian Blue, which I spent seven years, uh, wrote it over the course of seven years, so it was a long time in the making. Um, Yeah, and then I hope to write a book on Al Goldstein, so it's completely away from the movie subject matter, who was the publisher of Screw Magazine and was an important freedom of speech, but is now completely vilified. But that's probably my next book from Head Press, I think, in early 2011. All right. So if people want to find more about you and the touring that you're doing with the films and the books, what's the best way to do that?

Well, the touring is not really advertised on the net. It's just on a show-by-show basis. So each show usually puts something up that can be traced on the net. But the books, I would say just Google my name, Jack Stevenson, and on Amazon.com, they should all be listed on that. Any place that is a fairly good database for what books are in print or are coming out should have pretty much most of my... my stuff on it.

Sounds good. Well, thank you for talking to us. Okay, thanks a lot. Thank you again to Jack. Go check out his books and look for him touring around with some of the films he's collected.

All right, we'll take a quick break and be back with director Jason Epperson. Choosing a family movie is tough. It seems like all Hollywood can do is make mindless drivel that rots kids' brains. Who wants to see a movie like. The movies he grew up with are sometimes a big surprise.

I at times feel uncomfortable watching movies I loved when I was younger with my own kids because I forgot how much cursing, sex, and violence they showed back then. All we want to do is watch a fun movie that we all like. That's why we created Family Movie Night, a podcast where we review movies from an adult perspective. And from a kid's perspective. So you can find movies for your whole family to enjoy.

We review new movies. Old childhood favorites, cult and foreign films. And Godzilla. So check out Family Movie Night on the web at fmnpodcast.com or find us on iTunes. Bye!

We are family. We are family. Popsyndicate.com. Your one stop for all your unhealthy obsessions. Breaking news and in-depth reviews on all of your favorite movies, music, TV shows, podcasts, comics, books.

Popsyndicate.com. This is John Stalberg Jr. You're listening to Movie Meltdown. Where are you? It's part of your problem, you know, you haven't seen enough movies.

All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now, on with the show. Alright, we're back, and this time I sit down with up-and-coming director Jason Epperson, who you may be familiar with from the Steven Spielberg-produced reality series On the Lot. I talked to Jason about getting into directing and his new film, Unrequited. We're here with Jason Epperson, um, you grew up pretty far away from the Hollywood scene.

What, what inspired you to go into film? Um, what inspired me to go into film? Honestly, uh, I have a, uh, I have a personality that I just, I like a lot of, a lot of stuff. I like a little bit of everything. And, um, when I was in, uh, when I was in college trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, um, I changed my major literally like a dozen times.

So I finally got into. Art and then changed to art education and then decided to take a stab at broadcasting. And I like the radio. I like radio and I like the production of it. And then, of course, we had to take a video class.

I stuck a camera in my hand and next thing you know, I'm I just, uh, absorbed with it. And, um, I'm also, you know, the type of guy that once, once I find something I like, I just, you know, I dive, dive in and, um, completely, uh, uh, just go all out. So, uh, you know, I got to, uh, taking some of the editing classes and going out and shooting. I was like, man, you know, I can, this radio thing's cool, but I can, I can take his camera and do so much more with it. You know, tell us, tell, really tell a story.

Um, I can't say really that was my first experience with camera and video. When I was a little kid, you know, I do remember going, taking my dad's camera out, the one where you had to carry a VCR around, you know, for his play record. And I'd go out and I filmed all kinds of crazy stuff. But, you know, when you're that young, you don't really think you can make a career out of it. I never thought about that.

So it was really college, you know, when it set in and really got the fever, I guess, for it. It kind of took off from there. You did a lot of music videos early on. Did you originally intend on going into features? No, absolutely not.

It's funny because I've made the comment several times that if I could do music videos for the rest of my life, I would be happy. I love it because you're telling a story in three minutes, basically three to four minutes, and you can move on to the next. If you're doing a feature, it's taking you at least a year to do your story. So I've always been real attracted to the short format. And it was, you know, it's just a lot of fun.

And I love music, too. Again, kind of going back to the days working in radio and broadcasting and stuff, I just love music. And it was just a good fit for me. Fun, creative outlet. And it just kind of, I really did not get serious into the feature film world until I got on the show.

And, you know, did a few of these shows. I did a few short films before the show, but I'll be honest, you know, I could, a handful that I could really, I wouldn't even want to show anyone, right? But it wasn't until. I got on the show and, you know, started getting calls and people wanting me to direct features and getting attached to projects here and there. And, you know, I've really had.

To learn that business and kind of, figure out how to get my mind thinking in a feature format, quite honestly, when I did my first feature last year. The way that I approached it was I took each scene and made it like a short film. That's the way that I kind of put it all together. So each scene to me was like doing a little short film. And, again, it worked out pretty good.

I'm still learning, but I love it. I love it, and I can totally see myself. And again, that's my goal now is to move into that category where I can just be hired out to direct films. That's a pretty cool gig, right? Definitely.

It's funny that it seems like people who want to do it and just be sort of a commercially successful director, I've heard it's a lot easier to do anything but feature films, really, if you want to do music videos or commercials. there's so much more of a market and so much better pay involved and it's a lot easier. So it's, it's almost like that, you know, taking that step into the big feature films is, is you're sort of taking a hit for it on the way there, but yeah, it's artistic, you know, depends on how you want to go into it. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

I think, you know, you, as far as financially, you could probably do better doing commercial, the commercial work, um, commercial and corporate. And honestly, that's where I still make my money. Um, I didn't get paid very much to do my first feature. You know, it was just one of those things that I wanted to cross that off the list and do it and prove, again, kind of just prove to myself that this is what I want to do and hopefully that after this first film comes out and, you know, it'll do well enough that we'll maybe get me a few more gigs and maybe get paid a little bit more the next time. That would be nice.

That would be nice. I wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit. How did you initially get involved in on the lot? It's funny. I swear that my mother-in-law told me about the competition, but she swears that she didn't.

So I don't know how I found out about on the lot. Probably just surfing the Internet, but. they were originally asking to submit short films. There was no, again, there's no short film that I would want Steven Spielberg to see. So I put a music video in, um, which it was kind of, uh, not asked for, but you know, for me, I figured it was my best chance to get in. And sure enough, it worked out pretty, you know, I guess originally producers kind of cut it down to however many, there's like over 12,000 people submit it.

You know, I was, I went to Atlanta to do the interview initially. Um, and then had to go back to, uh, had to come back up here to Kentucky to do a short film in a week. And, again, at that point, there may be, I don't know, maybe 500 to 1,000 people that they cut down. And this was international, too. It was the world, you know.

It's just so crazy. So I got back, did my short film, submitted it, and within a couple weeks I got the call, you know, to come out. So this is crazy, crazy. Pretty much. Yeah, experience.

How different do you think your career at this point would be without that show? Um, well, it's, it's pretty much did a 180. Again, you know, I was pretty content beforehand just doing the music videos and the commercial work. Um, I'd considered some features, but it, uh, you know, it was, uh, definitely put on the back burner because I was doing well with, with these, um, with the, you know, the road that I was heading down. So, I would say 180.

Uh, obviously after the show, I moved out to LA. I was out there for a couple of years and, um, got the agent, got the manager and like, you know, I got these guys representing me and, and trying to get me work. And I'm going to meetings and meeting with the president of dreamworks and, uh, Gary Marshall, you know, I was on my cell phone. I go out to eat with, uh, Vern Troyer, mini me, you know, and hanging out with people like this. And it's just, uh, uh, just a crazy, crazy world that I was just kind of thrown right in.

And, um, definitely changed. My life has definitely changed since then. And it's been great. I mean, things, um, were a little nuts and crazy when I was in LA. Uh, there's a huge learning curve for me.

Again, I, I didn't go to film school. I have a degree in broadcasting, but it's totally, uh, I mean, it's a totally different world in film and in LA. Um, so, you know, I would say those first few years was a schooling process for me. Um, Ended up coming back home, and it was the best decision I ever made because I was getting work back home when I was out there. I was doing the writer's strike, and it was a mess that whole first year.

So I wasn't getting a lot of work and not doing exactly what I did. You know, again, maybe I can answer a lot of questions. I'm rambling for you. But I just felt like, you know, everything that got me on that show, I was able to do here in Kentucky. And through the network and the people I met, and there are good people here, professionals that want the same type of results and goals, you know, that I did.

So I was able to surround myself around those people. And the types of productions that I was doing here is ultimately what got me on the show to begin with. So for me, it was an easy decision to come back home and do something here. And it really just kind of fell right into the hands of when I met up with a couple of the producers who wanted to do Unrequited. And, again, it just made sense.

They had the same expectations as I did. Originally, the writer and producer wanted to direct that, and then we met up with me, and, again, it just made sense. They're like, let's bring you on because of the exposure, because of what you went through and my connections. It was just a good marriage. So we all got together.

We did this project, and here we are today premiering it. So it's been a good decision, a good ride for me. It's good to see something productive come out of reality television. Usually they're not sold on it. No doubt.

It's crazy, too, because the guy who won, Will, still hasn't done a feature. And a part of the deal, I mean, it was like a million-dollar contract for DreamWorks, but $ 500, 000 of that was supposed to go towards his movie that he was supposed to make within the two-year contract. And he still hasn't made one. So I haven't spoken to him for a while, but I'd say that's a bad thing. The crown by default, like Miss America.

Yeah, I don't know. But it's funny because I'm so competitive anyway. I always said that after I got off the show, and Gary Marshall even said it. If you watched the show on the last episode when Will won, Gary Marshall said that. Jason will be making films, but Will will be making them first.

And I'm like, we'll see about that. So I'm really excited and proud that I was able to make my first film before the guy who won the show made his. All respect to Will, and I love him to death. He's a great friend. It's good to have that competitive spirit.

It is, it is. You've got to have a little bit of that. That's why I feel like I got so far in the show. Speaking of Unrequited, how exactly did that come into play, or what drew you to it, if nothing else? Well, the.

A mutual friend of the producers hooked us up and got together. I read the script. Honestly, it takes me a while to get through some of these scripts. I've gotten bombarded with people pitching me scripts. I'm like, you know, 99% of them are just total crap.

But, you know, they gave me Unrequited. And, again, it was a teen thriller. I can't tell you either what I like. I just like a good story. Yeah.

There's no specific genre that I could say that I want to be fit into this category. Um, but I read unrequited and I would really like, I mean, I read through it one night and again, that's really unprecedented for me and really enjoyed it. And I called, called the guys back the next day and I was like, I just, I'd love to be a part of it. Um, again, I can't, I'd be lying if I sit here and said that I thought that this would be, you know, just the, this is the best project that ever for me, you know, to do. But again, But truthfully, I felt like it was the perfect project for my first film. so I really, really liked it, and I really dug the concept of it, and thought that I, you know, could come in and, through my style, really give it some flair, and I thought we could do well with it, so, again, it was just, it was a really good marriage, the guys are, I'm a Christian guy, the producers are Christian guys, we had the same philosophy, and the same ideas of how we wanted to show the film, and portray the characters and the morals of it were, you know, there were just things that just really added up and I felt like this is where I was supposed to be, this is what I was supposed to do.

So I did it. You have a different take on films, certainly being not from the Hollywood system. So now that you're getting into features, what are you setting out to do with your films? Again, I don't think there's anything. There's no agenda, there's no With me, man, I just feel like I'm really blessed.

To do what I get to do for a living is pretty freaking awesome. So I'm not that director that you can sit here and I'm not going to tell you my philosophies on films. I don't have one. Again, I'm happy to be able tomorrow to pick up a camera and go out and shoot whatever. I'm pretty humble when it comes to that.

So again, for me. I just, I just leave, leave the book open, turn the pages next day and see what drops in my lap. Um, with that being said, I'm also, I'm a go getter. I'm competitive and, uh, I'm always, uh, trying to push the envelope a little bit. I, Again, I know that you're only as good as your last film, and so I hope to find those projects that push me a little bit, get better, try new things, and continue this career for as long as it'll let me.

That it's a good philosophy to have right there. Well i'll go with that one yeah um do you have anything lined up or anything you want to talk yes yeah i'd love to talk to you um there's a project uh i'm a big sucker for documentaries um and i have thought i yeah you know i will we'll go back a little bit and what the first project i ever did was a documentary on my high school basketball team my nephew played and he's like aunt will you come and film our our basketball season, you know, might be really, get some cool stuff. And this is right when I first got, got into it. So, uh, literally I went to the bank and got a $ 5, 000 loan. Uh, they gave it to me for, I don't know how that happened.

They gave me the loan. I went and got a can, a little camera, an iMac and, uh, a microphone. That's all I had. I shot my, my nephews and ended up turning being two seasons worth of footage. And I got, broke my, broke my, uh, cherry i guess you'd say on that project yeah so um i have a uh i'm a big sucker for documentaries and the next project we're doing is a documentary on the carolton bus crash um which is a big event a lot of people know about that tragic crash um happened back in 1988 a lot of kids lost their life and then when the drunk driver uh crossed over the median and uh in and hit this school bus was filled of kids and a few few parents but uh Just some unbelievable stories that have come from that, and I'm really excited about this project.

We're doing it as a non-for-profit, so we're going to go out and we're going to look for donations. We're right now in that fundraising mode, trying to get that together. We'd love to shoot this thing starting in the fall. So a few months out, we'd love to get started on it. It's called Impact, after the crash.

And again, it's based on a Carrollton bus crash. So I got that happening. There's another project that's a... kind of a psychological thriller also that I'm working with a producer in LA. That's, that's also in the fundraising mode. That's looking pretty good, but, uh, I won't say too much about it because that's, you know, it's kind of up in the air right now, but it's looking pretty good.

Uh, kind of knock on wood on that one. But, um, besides that, you know, I've got, uh, I stay, I stay just consumed with, with projects. I got a music video we're shooting here in a few weeks here in Louisville. Really excited about. And, um, that's, uh, that's it for this year.

Um, I'm working on trying to get a new agent based on, you know, the film coming out and, uh, one that maybe can actually find me some work. Uh, back out in L.A., but it's good. I can't complain one bit. It's been a lot of fun. Is there a way for anybody to find you online?

Absolutely. My website is epicfilms.com. That's epic with two Ps, E-P-P. I see, because my last name's Epperson. If you want to check out Unrequited, you can go to unrequited.com.

It's U-N-R-E-Q-U-I-T-E-D.com. What else? What else? Oh, one thing to note, too, this past year, this has been a lot of fun. I've been working on developing television shows, some reality shows, actually.

That's the big thing. I just fell into a project for, out of all the things, a furniture company. But it's really pretty cool. This guy pitched me this idea. He's like, man, I think you could come and film our... furniture company we can we have a reality show here i'm like okay yeah whatever i've heard i've heard that before uh but i went and checked it out and they really do have some some pretty special i say special that's a good word that's happening there and uh so i filmed this uh i filmed it for like four four to six weeks went back and cut a like a sizzle reel together, and we did a really nice marketing campaign, website and everything.

And right now, we have a couple production companies in L.A. that just completely love this project. As a matter of fact, they like it so much, the executive producer called me. and said, uh, send me everything you got. He's like, send me more stuff. We really, we really liked the, uh, the promo that I cut together. And again, my background, I love editing.

Editing is my thing. I really consider myself an editor's director. Um, so I, uh, since that first one, I've had all these people and it's been pitching me their ideas now and I've done four more since then. Uh, so it's really cool. I got one called two old rock and roll guys in their mid uh, forties and fifties who are still trying to make it in the music.

Industry, but, but have their daylight. There's a lot of them. Yeah. So I think people could really relate to that. And, uh, I love that one.

And then there's one called the spiritual that we're working on that A & E is very interested in right now. Uh, and that's, uh, basically kind of just, uh, kind of in that paranormal feel. We got, you know, a couple of hosts that are going to go around and, um, kind of dissect, uh, all types of spiritual, you know, things happening in the world. Um, but again, getting a lot of, a lot of hits off that one too. Uh, but it's, it's again, crazy.

The reality show guy developing reality shows, you know, go figure. They're everywhere. You can't, you can't, you can't, you got to, uh, you gotta just, you gotta go with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, man. Yep. Appreciate it. Thank you again to Jason for taking time to talk with us. So look for unrequited and other upcoming films from him.

Well, that about does it here from the flyover film fest. I want to give a big thanks to everybody here at the Louisville film society for putting together such a great show, specifically, uh, Sheila, Tracy, George, and everybody who helped me out this weekend. And a big thanks to Ryan for putting up with me, uh, hanging around during the fest and, and basically helping us put together this episode. So a big thanks to him. And, um, Any questions you have about the movies we talked about on this episode, or anything you need information on, just email us at geeksatmoviemeltdown.com, and I'll try to pass along any information I can.

Don't be shy. We'd like to hear from you. So give us a call at 502-365-5565. Or you can email us at geeksatmoviemeltdown.com. And just stop by the website for our frequent updates.

That's MovieMeltdown.com. And while you're there, click on the forums link and go to our message boards at Pop Syndicate. Or go to PopSyndicate.com and go to the forum sections and look for Movie Meltdown. In the meantime, go find yourself some new independent films to watch. Otherwise, that about does it.

We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Looks like I'm running late again As the wind tips all concrete Keep the beat Always somewhere. To go Nowhere to.

Be I'm looking for my final mistake Those backyards. And great lakes I gotta take. It easy now. Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio The red ones and blue ones are places that I know Look up the way you've gone, the way you've. Been and where you've come.

I'm in a flyover stand I've found. I'm in a flyover stand I'm proud. Turned blocks and turned down. All distilleries and tri-towns. Gentlemen's farms.

It's my flight over state When I close my eyes, babe And then it rocks me to sleep A little clearer. Now Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio The red ones, the blue ones, the places that I know. We'll come to where you're going, where you've been, where you're from I'm in a flyover state. I've found I'm in a flyover state I'm proud In a flyover state Just a lovely flyover state I'm in a flyover state. You can't bring me down.

Living in my flyover state. Just a lovely flyover. state I'm in a flyover state. Don't bring me down Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio The red ones, the blue ones, the places that I know. Look up to where you're going. Where you've been and where you're from.

I'm in a flower stand I've found. I'm in a flower stand I'm proud. I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner. This show is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by Brian Renfro, with opening music performed by The Empires. To help support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com for ways that you can contribute or advertise with us.